Not enough has been written about the mindset of a state which is introducing this Assisted Dying Bill at high speed, with only 5 hours for debate, in a climate whipped up to support it
~ Tabitha Troughton ~
It’s too terrible to think that our very own Prime Minister could—is it too terrible? A snuffle, a cough, a sudden failure of the immune system; before you know it, a terminal diagnosis; and such pressure, should the “Assisted Dying” Bill pass today, to do the decent thing, to “not be a burden”: to choose valiantly to expire, and, such is the velocity of the process, expire pretty quickly, with the heartfelt thanks of a supportive, perhaps even encouraging, electorate, cheered on by Esther Rantzen.
Because it should not be forgotten that the real reason the UK public are now surreptitiously eyeing up their loved ones, and wondering how they’d feel about seeing them bumped off; or, in a bout of explicable existential depression (war! famine! chaos! literal fucking Nazis!) contemplating ending it all themselves, is a promise our prime minister made to the doyenne of late 20th century light entertainment and Childline founder, who, for the last year or more, has been speaking about her terminal lung cancer diagnosis.
Rantzen, 84, “would love to die in (her) favourite place”, her “New Forest cottage”, surrounded by her family. It is a choice she wants for all of us. Not to die in her New Forest Cottage, surrounded by her family, obviously; that would be confusing. But to die, peacefully, in our own homes, surrounded, for those whose relatives have not already chosen to shuffle off courtesy of Eli Lilly pharmaceuticals, by our families.
Of course we already have this option, or would have this option, under a properly funded NHS: it is known as “palliative care”. But, while giving someone prescription painkillers as they slip into oblivion is entirely legal and possible (full disclosure: my father died, at home, smiling, after a lengthy illness, which without painkillers would have been screamingly painful, to the sound of Abba’s “Take a Chance on Me”), it is a patient thing, in both senses of the word, and expensive.
Assisted suicide is marketed as an easy solution, a quick kill, viz traumatised testimonials such as Matthew Hall’s, who saw his aunt euthanised in Canada: one minute she was there, joking and laughing with the doctor. Then she was gone. Alternatively, it is not a quick kill: evidence to the Scottish parliament showed that it can take people several hours to die, during which time “many will be in great discomfort, even if outwardly they don’t appear to be suffering”.
Enough has surely been written about the opposition to this Bill, sponsored by the unqualified and previously unremarked MP Kim Leadbeater, a person who has “no doubts” about it; unlike the coalition of 350 UK disability organisations, for example, or the Association for Palliative Medicine (“one of the world’s largest representative bodies of medical/health care professionals practicing or interested in Palliative Medicine”). Enough surely has been written about the “slippery slope” which in other countries, which had similarly boasted about “world-beating safeguards”, has seen the practice extended to children, and “people with mental health issues”.
Not enough has been written about the mindset of a state which is introducing this Bill at high speed, with only 5 hours for debate, in a climate whipped up to support the Bill by, inter alia, the questionable funding of expensive advertising campaigns on public transport. This is a government which has already thrown the poorest to the wolves. This is a government which is enabling genocide. It is now a government proposing to turn our doctors into official death deliverers, and rushing this through, without consultation or time for deliberation. Why? And why would you trust any government, once it has abandoned this most visceral of moral feelings, with the accumulating consequences? Because of a promise made to Esther Rantzen?
